V for Vengeance (27 page)

‘Yes, who'd have thought it?' Gregory agreed. ‘Anyhow, it looks like my lucky day. It's only fair that I should be frank with you, though. I've been over here on a job of work, and I'm on the run from the Nazis. I've got to get back to England somehow and…'

‘You've bitten off something an' no mistake.'

‘I'm afraid I have, particularly as I've lost touch with the friends who were to smuggle me across. Still, it'd be a big help if you could get me as far as Lille.'

‘Course I will, and thundering glad to do it! These last few months ‘ave bin fair 'eart-breaking, an' I wouldn't miss the chance o' putting one over them Nazis for a 'undred quid. Bert Wheeler's my name, and I'll eat my Sunday pants if I don't get you safe up ter little ole Lille.'

With this splendid break all Gregory's depression of the morning vanished. Bert took him along to his barge and introduced him to ‘the wife', a plump and still good-looking Frenchwoman. She was as pro-British as Bert himself, and on being told the situation made Gregory heartily welcome. The three of them went ashore again to buy provisions for the journey, as Aimée Wheeler explained to Gregory that, scarce as things were in Paris, they were even worse in the provincial towns such as Compiègne, Noyon, St. Quentin, Cambrai and Douai, through which they would pass.

Gregory insisted on paying for everything, and by telling the story that they wanted a few delicacies to celebrate an anniversary, for which money was no object, he succeeded in persuading a number of the shopkeepers to produce luxuries from under their counters which his new friends would not possibly have been able to afford. At seven o'clock they returned to the barge, laden with their purchases, and an hour later Mrs. Wheeler produced for them a really excellent dinner from her little galley in the stern of the vessel.

Afterwards Bert gave them a concert on his accordion, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that Gregory dissuaded him from playing ‘Tipperary', ‘Roses of Picardy', Old Soldiers Never Die', and at the end ‘God Save the King'; upon all of which he started without warning. Gregory was made comfortable in a small box-like cabin up in the bow, and he went to sleep that night thanking all his gods that he had found this splendid couple to help him on his way.

At sunrise the following morning the barge chugged out of the Bassin on its way north, and the next four days were a little oasis of happiness and calm for Gregory in the desert of nerve-racking uncertainty through which the track of his life was once again set. Hour after hour the barge steadily nosed its way along canals and rivers, through the peaceful countryside in which there were few traces of war, and he was amazed to see how little damage had been sustained by
most of the towns and villages through which they passed; but that, he knew, was to be accounted for by the fact that the German invasion had been carried out with such extraordinary rapidity that in many places the French had never stood to fight.

They reached Lille on November the 7th, and Gregory knew to his regret that the time had come when he must part from Bert and Aimée Wheeler. They flatly refused to accept any money from him, but, having noticed that these simple friends who had shown him such unfailing kindness and good cheer had only a cheap alarum clock in their cabin, he went ashore and bought the most handsome timepiece he could find in the town to present to them as a souvenir of his voyage.

Not wishing to involve Bert in any danger, Gregory had refrained from even discussing possible plans for a continuation of his journey, but when he returned from his shopping expedition with the clock under his arm he found a lean, gaunt-looking fellow with Bert in the cabin of the barge.

Speaking in French, Bert introduced the gaunt man as Hugo Gilleron, another barge-master, who was a friend of his, and announced with a happy wink that Gilleron had agreed to take Gregory on from Lille to Bruges when his barge had completed loading the following day.

Gilleron proved to be a quiet, uncommunicative man, and it later transpired that as he had no wife he had formed the habit of silence from long days spent alone on his barge, with only a young lad to help him. He was, however, bitterly anti-Nazi, as in their advance during the preceding summer the Germans had machine-gunned his old mother, his sister and her child, shooting all three of them to ribbons before his eyes, when they had been struggling along the road in a column of refugees.

Gregory gladly accepted the Frenchman's offer, then took him and the Wheelers ashore for drinks and as good a meal as they could get that evening. Next morning he took his final leave of the Wheelers, and, having transferred his kit, which consisted only of a few things that he had bought in Paris, to the other barge, resumed his journey early in the afternoon.

Lille is only a few miles south of the Belgian frontier, and
Gregory had good reason to be anxious about crossing it, as there was no Belgian visa on the French passport with which Lacroix had furnished him, and if he was found concealed in the barge it was certain that he would be arrested.

However, Gilleron reassured him by saying that the Customs people on the frontier rarely bothered them now that the Germans were the masters everywhere and the border little more than a line on a map; but he took the precaution of hiding Gregory in an empty boiler which was part of his cargo. Actually, the frontier officials did no more than take a brief look under the hatches of the barge, not even troubling to come down into its hold; so half an hour later Gregory was able to emerge and resume his comfortable corner on the afterdeck, where he could survey the placid water through which they rippled and the flat, grey November landscape, with its poplar-lined roads, that made up the Flanders scene.

The fare that Gilleron provided was rough-and-ready after the buxom Aimée Wheeler's excellent cooking, but Gregory, who was no mean amateur cook, took charge of the culinary arrangements and, as was his custom when in the quiet phases of any campaign in which he was involved, slept a great part of the time between meals to average up those hectic periods during which, for long stretches, he might get no sleep at all.

On the afternoon of the 11th they reached Bruges, and, having made Gilleron a handsome present, Gregory stepped ashore, once more faced with the grim problem of how, without further help, he was to make the final, and far the most difficult, stage of his journey.

As every hour counted Gregory decided that he would not spend the night in the lovely old Flemish city, but make his way at once towards the coast. He thought it likely that the more lonely stretches would probably be barred to civilians, but that a big town like Ostend could hardly be cut off altogether from the interior.

He soon found that he was correct. A motor-bus service was still running, and having made tactful enquiries of the driver it transpired that no special permits were required for people going into the great Belgian seaside resort. In consequence, he made the fifteen-mile journey in just under an hour, and at half past four was set down on the Plage.

Bruges had not been badly blitzed, but Ostend had suffered heavily, and, although he was turned back by a policeman from entering the dock area, he got quite near enough to it to see the R.A.F. had done terrific damage to the harbour works. The buildings round them and a number of masts sticking up out of the water told a tale of direct hits on Nazi-controlled shipping.

He still had no idea how he should manage the incredibly difficult feat of getting across to England; but without the least grounds for it he felt just as optimistic and cheerful as he had felt pessimistic and depressed before he and Kuporovitch had landed on Henri Denoual's island. Perhaps that was partly due to the splendid break he had had in picking up Bert Wheeler in Paris, and Bert's then having fixed the journey from Lille to Bruges with Gilleron for him. But he somehow had a definite hunch that he had struck a lucky vein and that it would continue.

On passing a large café on the waterfront he decided to go in and think the situation out over a vermouth. He had hardly given his order when, on looking round, he saw seated alone, a few tables away, a tall, thin man whose face was vaguely familiar. Gregory's first instinct was to cover up and get out of the place as quickly as he could, as in enemy territory anyone who might know him was a potential danger. Before he could even move he saw to his consternation that the man had already recognised him, as he had got up from his table and was coming over. The only thing to do now was to face matters out and hope for the best, although he had a sudden sinking feeling that perhaps he had been over-optimistic about his luck holding, only a few minutes before.

With a little nod the man sat down, and said in a noncommittal voice: ‘I had no idea that you were still in Belgium.'

At the sound of the man's voice Gregory suddenly remembered who he was and where he had seen him before. He was the Comte de Werbomont, and Gregory had last seen him when he was acting as one of the Gentlemen-in-Waiting to King Leopold.

Feeling more confident now, Gregory smiled and said in a low voice: ‘I haven't been living here. I got away all right, but I returned to France a few weeks ago. Now I'm trying to get back to England, and it's only fair to warn you that you may get into serious trouble if I happen to be caught while you're talking to me.'

De Werbomont shrugged. ‘I don't think you're in any danger at the moment, and, as you know, we Belgians are prepared to do anything we can to help an Englishman. The fewer people one trusts in these days the better, so I shall perfectly understand if you prefer not to discuss your plans, but if there's any small assistance which I can render please don't hesitate to ask it.'

Gregory smiled rather ruefully. ‘That's very good of you, Comte. As a matter of fact, I'm in a very difficult position. I have no plans at all. Everything was fixed up for me to be smuggled out of France, but unfortunately the arrangements broke down. I made my way here from Paris by barge in the hope that the Belgian coast would be less strongly patrolled than the Channel ports and that somehow or other I might
succeed in getting across from some little place along the coast here.'

The Comte raised his eyebrows. ‘I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. Any idea of stowing away in a ship is entirely out of the question, now that all traffic of every kind is cut off between England and the Continent. Frankly, if I had to make such a trip I shouldn't have the first idea how to set about it.'

‘How about the fishing fleets?' Gregory asked. ‘The Germans need all the food they can get; surely they let the fishermen carry on? I've plenty of money, so I could afford to pay any good sportsman handsomely if he'd run me over.'

‘There's no hope of that. Ever since the collapse the Germans have had no use for their artillery other than employing it on coast defence; the whole coast positively bristles with batteries of every description. The fishing fleets are never allowed out more than two miles in daylight, and a most careful watch is kept on them, so if one of them attempted to break away it would be sunk within five minutes.'

‘How about at night, though?'

‘Whenever the trawlers go out at night a strong guard of German soldiers is placed on each vessel to ensure its return.'

‘That makes things pretty tricky,' Gregory grinned, ‘but there must be lots of small sailing-yachts along the coast; perhaps I could manage to pinch one and get over that way.'

De Werbomont shook his head. ‘They were all commandeered months ago and have been concentrated in the larger harbours where it would be quite impossible for you even to get on board one, let alone take it to sea.'

‘It looks as though I'll have to make the trip in a rowing-boat, then.'

‘What!' exclaimed the Comte. ‘You would risk trying to cross to England in an ordinary rowing-boat! From Ostend to Dover is getting on for eighty miles. There are dangerous cross-currents in the Channel. Once you were tired from rowing you would certainly be carried off your course, and that would make the distance to be covered very much longer. It's doubtful, too, if you would be able to get far enough before daylight to avoid being spotted and machine-gunned by the patrolling German aircraft.'

‘Yes, it's admittedly one hell of an undertaking. But I've got to get back somehow, and there doesn't seem to be any other way. I've a feeling though, that I'm in a vein of luck at present, and I'm prepared to chance it if I can get hold of a boat.'

‘Even that is not going to be easy. With their usual thoroughness the Germans have listed all the small craft that they have not commandeered, and keep a constant check on them.'

‘Hang it all! There must be some old tub tucked away in a boat-house that they've overlooked and which would serve the purpose.'

De Werbomont hesitated for a moment. ‘As a matter of fact, I have a collapsible canoe packed away up in my attic, but …'

‘There!' exclaimed Gregory. ‘I told you that my luck was in. That is, if you'll be kind enough to let me have it.'

‘Of course—if you wish.' The Belgian smiled a little doubtfully. ‘But, as I was going to say, it's only a plaything that we used for bathing in the summer. My son once did a river trip in it down the Meuse, but it isn't the sort of thing in which one could hope to cross the Channel.'

‘Why not?' Gregory enquired. ‘If it's the ordinary type of collapsible canoe, made of struts and canvas, the fore and after parts are covered in; so it's much less likely to get waterlogged than an open boat.'

‘That's true,' agreed the Comte, ‘and the fact of its being smaller would make it less likely to be sighted from the air; but it's much too frail to stand up to any heavy pounding if you meet rough weather.'

‘That's on the knees of the gods, but for once in my life I'm dead certain that my luck's in.'